You Are More Beautiful Than You Think!
I’m not crazy about the current Dove campaign in which a police artist draws a portrait of a forty-ish woman from her description (dour and harsh) and then draws another from the description by another woman who has spent a little time with her (warmer and more pleasant looking); the punch line is “you are more beautiful than you think.”
This is not news. We have been prettier than we thought all along. When we are not comparing ourselves unfavorably to models and movie stars — who, the fan magazines show us gleefully, don’t look at all like their glamorous selves when out doing errands — we are comparing present selves with our younger selves.